Corvette! The D-Team’s Nasty, Knackered C4

We’re a week removed from the 24 Hours of Lemons‘ annual ‘Shine Country Classic at Barber Motorsports Park and while the Slant Six Plymouth Valiant won the top Index of Effluency honors, the one example of America’s Sports Car represented the most decrepit hooptie on the property. The D-Team brought a (mostly) teal C4 Corvette that set new low standards of Chevrolet suckitude.

While the internet doth protest at a $500 Corvette, this one represented vileness in some truly $500 ways. The rookie team from Chattanooga had cobbled this pile together from no fewer than three C4 Corvettes. Considering that the team had taken the best of those cars, we can’t imagine how bad the donor Corvettes were. Suffice to say that $500 Corvettes do really exist and they’re probably in your unmarried uncle’s backyard.

Every single fiberglass panel on The D-Team’s car featured major rips and breaks. And that was before one of their drivers scraped a wall with it. During the race, both side mirrors both fell off for good measure, as did the exhaust.

Unlike some Lemons Corvettes, this team had dispatched the Crossfire-Injection Chevy 350 for an earlier Small-Block Chevy. Notice that we didn’t say “better” Small-Block Chevy. This one came out of a late C3 Corvette, i.e. the “SadVette.” The engine, the team said, had most recently lived in a Ford Model T roadster whose notable feature was an active will to kill its occupants. The T-Bucket moved on, but they kept the engine along with the Corvette’s stock automatic transmission.

That C3 V8 featured a modicum of speed parts, none of which appeared to add any horsepower. The modifications mainly seemed to increase the rates at which it bellowed smoke out the rear and breathed oil out of the engine block.

No bother, it’s a Corvette so it was surely fast, right? The team optimistically wrone on their entry, “We want to go fast in an old car around a track full of other people going fast in old cars.” Yeah, about that. The Corvette was the fourth-slowest car for the whole weekend. The IOE-winning Plymouth Valiant went more than a full second quicker with a six-cylinder engine and a transmission with one usable gear.

For bringing one of the most terrible Corvettes we’ve ever seen—and Lemons HQ used to run Corvette Magazine, mind you—The D-Team’s C4 took home the Organizer’s Choice from Barber. We’ll have more from the ‘Shine Country Classic and the Retreat From Moscow Lemons Rally right here this week.